Webster defines a bully as "A noisy, blustering fellow, more insolent than courageous, who threatens, intimidates, or badgers people who are smaller or weaker than he is; an insolent, tyrannical fellow." As fans of excentric and somewhat outlandish hobbies, many of us have had to deal with bullies in our real life.

So why do we let them insert themselves into our games?

It happens in any social situation. People generally obey common social patters, but others break them expecting that they won't be called out. Those people will do things in game to increase their own enjoyment without any thought, or even at the expense, of other players. These players need to be dealt with, or other people may leave the game.

Here are some of the types of bullies that you might run into, and some ways to deal with them.

Godmoding
This is a type of bullying that only exists in roleplaying. All players are expected to create the world around them. This helps all players immerse within the game world. However, some players go a little bit further and create roleplaying ideas and situations that step all over another person's game. Instead of having an arguement or disagreement in-game, they simply state that they're right in a way that cannot be combatted, except by out of game means.

These godmoders break immersion and fun for everyone, in order to make their character look superior. This makes it difficult to fight them. Generally, they give themselves backgrounds or access to information to give them an edge in the game, so the way to deal with them is exactly the opposite. If someone claims they are king of the fae in order to get access to fae related plot, simply dodge them with that plot. I don't normally condone targeting (or in this case reverse targeting), but this is the only way to do it, except for pulling them aside and telling them that they're doing it wrong. And that is a tactless way that won't normally work, but will make them direct their godmoding to another person.